Pliny’s assertion of political harmony under the principate can be extended to the idealistic vision of world in general – that is, beyond politics. Pliny presents the contemporary literary milieu as flourishing: “This year has produced a great number of poets: there was scarcely a day in the whole month of April when someone was not reciting in public. I am glad that liberal pursuits are thriving. Men reveal their talents, although people reluctantly come to recitations” (1.13.1). To rest from the daily routine, Pliny spends some of his time at his luxurious villa by the seashore. The villa itself is presented to the reader as a paradisiacal locale. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Pliny’s leisurely happiness is commensurate with the bliss on the Isles of the Blessed or at the Elysian Fields: “Appropriate and genuine life! Sweet and noble ease, better than almost any kind of public business! Sea and shore, my remote abode of Muses, you are the source of much inspiration!” (1.9.6)
Pliny manages to shape his letters in such a way as to create a consistent representation of the imperial Rome of Nerva and Trajan. In the context of the post-Domitian empire, Pliny’s sovereign, like the sovereign in Hobbes’s Leviathan, becomes a personification of the body politic, whereas all classes of Roman society turn to the emperor for inspiration. Even the bliss of otium largely depends on the good emperor and on tranquility of the public world.
Selected Bibliography
Fantham, E. (1996). Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to Apuleius. Baltimore.
Hoffer, S.E. (1999). The Anxieties of Pliny the Younger. Atlanta.
Leach, E.W. (1990). “The Politics of Self-Presentation: Pliny’s Letters and Roman Portrait Sculpture.” CA 9: 14-39.
Mommsen, T. (1869). “Zur Lebensgeschichte des jüngeren Plinius.” Hermes 3: 31-139.
Riggsby, A.M. (1998). “Self and Community in the Younger Pliny.” Arethusa 31: 75-98.
Shelton, Jo-Ann (1987). “Pliny’s Letter 3.11: Rhetoric and Autobiography.” C & M 38: 120-139.
Sherwin-White, A.N. (1969). Fifty Letters of Pliny. Oxford.
